


Tired Hearts

by DannyAnne



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: 5 Things, 5+1 Things, Angst, M/M, but borrowed some stuff from what i know about the books, definitely based on the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 06:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11914815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DannyAnne/pseuds/DannyAnne
Summary: Simon was trying to find some way to stop feeling like he could have done something to make the present feel different. He could have been a better student, could have gone out more and worn down his curiosity for dangerous things before he got involved with the Shadow World.Or, he thought, he could have gotten here faster.-Alternatively: Five times Simon couldn't be there for Raphael and the one time he could.





	Tired Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be short. Oops.
> 
> Title inspired Tired by Alan Walker + Gavin James.
> 
> There's some discussion of Simon's religion in here. I'm not a religious person, but I tried my best. If there's any inaccuracies or insensitivities, please let me know so I can adjust.
> 
> Other than that...enjoy!

**1.**

Simon doesn’t expect to feel comfortable with being a vampire. He doesn’t expect the denial, a furious, all encompassing emotion in the beginning, to fizzle out and drain away. He doesn’t expect cold, dead resignation to settle in like a weight in his just as cold and dead stomach.

And he doesn’t expect anyone to notice either.

“It feels like guilt.”

Simon was sitting in the kitchen of Hotel Dumort. He realized a long time ago that the room was really just for looks. It was old and big, filled with industrial appliances that, years and years ago, would have worked hard to fill empty stomachs. Now, they sat in quiet disuse, just as dead as the building’s occupants.

Raphael was leaning casually against the not working stove and he was the one to speak.

Simon looked up from his task of using a dull knife to scratch an absent minded design into the metal prep table.

Raphael watched Simon’s hands despite their paused movement. Simon didn’t say anything. He simply waited. Sure enough, after a few beats of expectant silence, Raphael looked up to Simon’s face.

Simon knew Raphael would never admit to enjoying the sensation of hearing himself speak and holding a genuine conversation with someone. But Simon saw the way he relaxed when it was just him and Simon or just him and Lily. His voice, always low and careful, got louder and less practiced. He interrupted himself with second thoughts or useless pauses or easy breaths of laughter. Simon had never pointed it out for fear of crossing some unspoken boundary. He simply sat and let those moments fill him with warmth.

Simon didn’t feel the expected warmth prickle on his skin this time. Raphael was standing easy enough, his weight pressed carelessly into the edge of the stove behind him. But his arms were crossed a little too tightly and his blank expression was a little too practiced.

“People have never been good at accepting death,” Raphael said. “No matter how much practice they get they’re never going to get used to it. Vampires live with it every day—for eternity.”

A cold feeling settled in Simon’s bones at the reminder of eternity. He’d heard it before, joked about casually by the others or thrown out in frustrated fights with Raphael. Normally, he hated the sound of it. Now it just felt like…an eventuality. Something not even worth struggling against anymore.

“When I was coming to terms with it, the first thing I felt was guilt.” Raphael shifted his feet, but his eyes never left Simon’s. Simon felt his chest lurch. “Part of me thought the whole thing was a test. Accepting this as my life meant failure. It meant weakness in the face of a demon’s offer.

“But I was tired of fighting and tired of being angry. I was torturing myself and it wasn’t changing a single thing.” He looked away to an empty corner of the room. “So I accepted it and I felt guilty for it.”

Simon touched his fingers to the edge of his knife. His heart should have been pounding but his whole body was quiet.

“Simon,” Raphael said. Simon didn’t know if he said it to get his attention or to remind himself why he had started the conversation in the first place. “Fighting is the most human thing you can do. But some things…” He paused. “Some things you just have to let happen. It’s not your fault. What happened to you—”

Simon looked up. Raphael was watching him again.

“What happened to you was not your fault.”

Simon realized that they weren’t talking about him.

**2.**

Clary was the one to ask.

Simon hadn’t been a vampire for long when she did. But this instinctive jolt of revulsion pulsed through him when she said the words.

“How did Raphael die?”

It’s not that Simon had been given a vampire rulebook. He just sort of knew that if he had been given one, chapter one would be titled Don’t Fucking Ask a Vampire How They Died. It just seemed, at the very least, pretty rude.

Clary didn’t know, though, Simon told himself. She didn’t know about the hush that fell over Hotel Dumort when sunrise came. She didn’t know about the way Lily collected small cacti because they were the only things that could go without sunlight for just as long as her.

So he said, “I don’t know,” and excused himself for a long walk home.

Simon was honestly surprised he hadn’t thought about it before. He supposed, in retrospect, that his mind must have touched on the thought at some point. It must have happened in the few seconds before he thought about his own death. That memory was enough to wrap Simon up in a fog of panic, effectively pushing everything else out of his head.

It wasn’t that his death had been particularly traumatizing. Scary, sure. It was terrifying to have a vampire lunge at you, intent on ripping out your throat. It was even worse to wake up in complete darkness, layers of hot, damp earth pressing against your chest, your body suddenly refusing to work, lungs refusing to expand, heart refusing to beat. Simon had never had a fear of being buried alive, but in that moment he had wondered what had ever convinced him that he was safe from it.

Most of the time, though, it wasn’t even those memories that kept him awake. He definitely lost some hours to them, especially on colder days when even the world outside the hotel was quiet and dark. But the thing that kept him up was the memory of the exact moment everything stopped.

Simon thought maybe he’d made it up, maybe it was some way of his brain trying to put a buffer between the moment it shut down and the moment he clawed his way out of his own grave.

Whether it existed or not, the memory of that one instant of blankness while he still felt awake, was enough to make his childish fear of the dark rear its head. He could feel it creep into his brain, first as a tingle of dread at the back of his neck and then as a shiver that wouldn’t stop.

He thought that maybe Clary asking about Raphael was a good thing. He didn’t know if he could handle someone questioning him about himself, poking at the questions of what came after. Simon honestly didn’t know the answer and he didn’t think he ever wanted to take a second shot at finding out.

Raphael was awake when Simon returned to the hotel. He was sprawled on one of the couches, legs kicked up on an arm, head resting on a pillow. It was so close to dawn that Simon thought Raphael had simply decided that this was the place to sleep the day away. It wasn’t the case, though, because Raphael’s head turned to regard Simon and Simon realized that he was awake and maybe he had been waiting.

“I’m late,” Simon admitted as apology.

Raphael turned his head back to its original position and simply lifted one lazy hand in Simon’s general direction. Simon realized he was holding a shot glass and amusement flickered to life inside him.

“Raphael, you party animal!” Simon grinned. “Plasma?”

Raphael made a quiet noise.

Simon was filled with renewed energy. He scrambled his way over to the couch and plopped down in the empty space by Raphael’s head. “How many shots have you had?” he asked. “Like, how much time do I have to weasel out all your deep dark secrets before you come to? Are the others like this? There are some choice stories Lily’s refused to tell me.”

Raphael angled his eyes to look at Simon. It looked a little painful, but Raphael didn’t complain about it so Simon kept smiling.

Raphael continued to stare for another moment before dropping his glass and feet to the floor. The glass shattered in a small pile on the ground, a few shards sliding across to floor to rest against Simon’s feet. He stared at them and felt his smile and amusement fade away.

Raphael was sitting at least three feet away now, but Simon could feel his presence like a sudden storm.

“It has been,” Raphael said, “exactly sixty-four years since I died.”

Simon’s first thought was to make an old man joke. They were a particular favorite of his, mostly because of the exasperated eye roll they pulled from Raphael, which was both incredibly attractive and full of a fondness that was always a delightful surprise.

His second thought was _how did Raphael die?_

Because that was it, wasn’t it? Today was the day, sixty-four years ago, that it had happened. And now that Clary had asked and Raphael was looking so unbelievably raw, Simon couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Do you know,” Raphael said, “what the most dangerous thing in the world is?”

“An angry vampire?” Simon offered.

Raphael tilted his head and looked at Simon. “A courageous child.”

“How did you die?”

Raphael looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. He blinked rapidly and then dropped his head to look at the ground. A few hairs fell out of place.

“I was the oldest kid in my family. We lived in a small house in a small neighborhood. Everyone knew each other. So when a few of the younger kids in town went missing, it became the whole block’s problem.

“It wasn’t different at first. We didn’t live in a bad part of town, but kids always go missing no matter where they live, so we were upset but it was just…it was just normal. It was just a thing that happened, a thing you could tell kids to get them in before curfew.

“But then it kept happening.” He tossed a split second look at Simon as if checking he was still there. Simon sat as still as he possibly could. “I know you think the Shadow World is a big secret to every human out there, but to some it’s just a fact. So saying it was vampires wasn’t that big of a stretch.

“It was just rumors at first. Just worried parents and imaginative kids. But a couple of…” He swallowed. The next sentence sounded like a confession. “A couple of us were scared and willing to believe anything that gave us a shot at making it stop.” He breathed and it was such an unnecessarily human action that Simon could feel it burn through his own body and fill his own lungs. “I had three brothers and a sister. They walked to school everyday, stayed out past sunset, played in abandoned lots.”

Simon, selfishly, wanted Raphael to stop. He didn’t want to keep watching his fingers dig into the couch, he didn’t want to keep looking at the way his hair was curling, he didn’t want to keep listening to the way his words went thick and heavy.

“So me and a couple boys went out one night. We tracked him down to the hotel.” Simon almost jolted out of his skin when he realized Raphael meant Hotel Dumort. He had spent months coming to terms with this building and suddenly felt betrayed.

“We didn’t last long at all,” Raphael said. “He took me first and when I woke up…”

Simon didn’t need him to finish. He remembered the feeling of waking up. He remembered the way his throat had burned. He remembered the way his lungs had tried to work and the way it made his chest feel like is was going to explode. He remembered the way his entire body felt too still, how he had wanted to run and scream if only to make it feel like he was still something more than a corpse. He remembered wanting to rip Clary’s throat out and drink her dry.

And he remembered Raphael, tossing him blood bags and crouching to look him in the eyes.

Simon didn’t know what to do with his hands. He didn’t know where to look or what to say. Raphael had stopped talking and the hush of dawn had blanketed the hotel.

Raphael let out a long sigh. He dropped his head and rubbed at his face. Then he stood and made his way towards the doorway.

Simon felt desperate to do anything other than sit and watch him go. But this had happened so long ago. Sixty-four years ago.

Ridiculously, Simon felt guilty for being so young.

**3.**

When Simon started high school, his mom started drinking.

It wasn’t a big deal at first. Really, Simon was ecstatic when she started to leave the house more to hang out with friends at bars and comedy clubs. He and Becky had been devastated when their dad died, but Simon couldn’t begin to imagine how hard it had hit their mom. He had encouraged her nights out.

By the middle of the year, he had stopped encouraging it. He had started to feel uneasy and a little scared. A bottle of liquor in their freezer became a constant. Family dinners happened less and less until they finally stopped all together.

Thankfully, there hadn’t been any devastating climax to it all. Becky and Simon had both talked to her about it. There had been a lot of crying and hugging and apologizing. There had been weekly AA meetings and, eventually, the tradition of family dinners had returned. This time, Simon had learned to love those nights fiercely.

But there had still been months of feeling lost and disconnected.

Simon liked to think his family was a little closer than most kids’. His parents had always given him space when he was younger and he had been trying to say thank you his entire life. And while his mom worried a lot about the stability of his future career, she never once stopped encouraging his music.

Watching her struggle through the addiction had felt like a constant nightmare to Simon.

So when Lily told him about Camille’s drug den blood operation, it wasn’t false pity that crawled across Simon’s skin. It was a cold, clammy fear that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Cocaine addicts, mostly,” Lily explained. “But, really, anything that gets in the blood and fucks a Mundane up can do just as much to us.”

Lily didn’t really look sad. If anything, she looked frustrated. Simon knew what it felt like to look back on all the weeks he and Becky had been too scared to speak up, too nervous to make a big deal out of something they still hoped could be a misunderstanding.

Simon had heard every line in the book. He knew Lily would just push them aside or joke her way through them. So he let her keep talking, let her relay every name she could remember that had wasted away on blood that fed but didn’t nurture.

Eventually, she paused and her eyes softened, though her mouth was still turned in a cruel way. “Raphael was like a saint.”

Simon took a breath.

“He was the only one that realized what was going on. He was such a small thing.” Her voice was just as soft as her eyes and she tried to smile. “A lot of us would have died if he hadn’t helped us.” Simon could see the way she tried to curl her lips around “me.”

“I left.”

Lily didn’t look surprised at the sound of Raphael’s voice. Simon, to his credit, had heard footsteps maneuver down the hall and settle into silence at the doorway. But he hadn’t known it would be Raphael. So his habitual breath still caught and he had to convince himself to keep looking at Lily.

“Temporarily,” Lily said. “You came back. That’s what matters.” Simon saw just how much she meant it in the way her mouth finally relaxed and her shoulders fell out of their usual pristine posture of authority. It was an unbelievable shift towards comfort and Simon would always be amazed at the way the clan, mistreated and misled as they had been, so readily trusted Raphael’s presence.

Lily looked up at Raphael and Simon, after only a moment of hesitation, followed her gaze.

Raphael was standing in the doorway, every muscle tense, eyebrows tilted and mouth firm. Simon felt a sudden sense of déjà vu, remembering the way his sister stood in the door to their mom’s bedroom, determination and anger at the ready while Simon sat on the bed next to his mom, just trying to keep his crying inaudible.

“I should have stayed or taken you with me. There was no reason for you to suffer through that while I threw a tantrum.”

“ _Camille_ threw a tantrum,” Lily said. “You saved yourself. You think you could have helped so many of us if you were running on diluted heroine?”

“I could have done more if I had stayed close to Camille.”

“And you would have done it slower.”

It was such a practiced argument. If Simon hadn’t been living with both of them for months, he would have thought they were bored. He would have missed the way Lily started to breathe like a human. He would have missed the way Raphael’s accent soaked his words.

“It was a mistake,” Raphael said. “One of many.”

He hadn’t meant to glance at Simon and he tried to make it quick, but Simon still saw it and it still hurt for just a single moment. Then he remembered Raphael staying up until dawn, waiting for Simon to walk through the door instead of sleeping away heavy memories and the hurt disappeared just as quickly as it came. Weirdly enough, he felt loved.

“We’re glad you were there,” Lily said and Simon could hear her lungs settle back into silence, could feel the way her hand nudged, almost by mistake, against his thigh. “We’re glad you’re still here.”

Raphael looked again at Simon, this time lingering. If Simon hadn’t known to look for it, he would have missed the gratitude.

Raphael bowed his head slightly as if in apology. “So am I.”

**4.**

Simon’s phone had four voicemails. Three of them were from his mom, one of them was from Becky. While Simon appreciated his sister’s restraint in calling, he knew that every hour he didn’t reply to her would mean a paragraph long text.

He listened to all four of the messages. And then he listened to them again.

The snow outside was seeping in through the cracks of Hotel Dumort’s foundation. Simon could only just barely sense the shift in the air that meant cold wafts of wind were mixing with the building’s usual stagnant atmosphere. It was easier to smell the cold. It stung his nose pleasantly and reminded him of frozen lakes.

He played the messages again.

His knee bounced as he listened to his mom list off dinner guests for every night of the Lewis Hanukkah Celebration. He felt each syllable pound into him like a coffin nail.

Becky was a little subtler. She simply called under the pretense that she had found their old stash of quarters from when they were kids and reiterated a worn down bet that their grandma would give her more this year. She was older, after all. It was only logical. Simon laughed at this message all four times.

He knew Raphael hated when he asked. He knew it was one of the few things that put actual tension between them.

“Can I go home?” Simon had asked his first night in Hotel Dumort.

Raphael had looked at him with exasperation and simply said, “No.”

Simon had not refrained from asking again. He had, in fact, asked every single day for a week. Some days he had felt desperate, but most days he had just felt vindictive. Especially after Raphael’s annoyance had become threaded with honest sympathy.

“Go home, then, Baby,” Raphael had snapped on the eighth day Simon had asked. “Go home and see how long you last huddled in your room with the curtains drawn and a bottle of cold blood. See how long it takes you to get desperate.”

Simon had stopped asking. His silence had lasted for two more weeks.

Then he had dragged himself back to the hotel after staying out until the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon. Raphael had been waiting for him, his expression impatient. Simon had taken one look at him and felt tears rush to the ready.

“I want to go home,” he’d said.

And Raphael had taken a long, steadying breath and said, “I know.”

Simon hadn’t asked since then. If he felt homesick he swallowed it down and took a nap. If he felt restless, if Becky texted him too much, if his mom called just to hear his voice, he choked out a sensible conversation and then locked himself in his room.

So when he stood in the fresh snow outside the hotel and watched Raphael make his way up the road looking ready for a long day of rest, Simon didn’t expect himself to say, “I’m going home for Hanukkah.”

Raphael stopped walking and Simon stared at the way the yellow streetlight tinted his skin and the embroidered flowers of his jacket. They were still standing an oddly long distance apart. If they still had beating hearts, they might have had to shout to hear each other. As it stood, Raphael didn’t need to speak louder than his usual muted words for Simon to hear him.

“Okay,” he said.

“I’ve never missed it before,” Simon explained.

“I’m sure,” Raphael responded.

“So I’m going home.”

“Okay.”

Simon pursed his lips until it hurt. Raphael didn’t move. Simon felt like the conversation hadn’t ended, but he didn’t know what else he was supposed to say.

Raphael let out a breath that puffed in the air in front of him. “You’ll never stop wanting to go home,” he said. “I never expected you to stop. I just wanted you to think about it first.”

Simon felt like he knew what to say now. “When’s the last time you went home?”

No more air puffed in front of Raphael. He looked, Simon thought wryly, exactly like the corpse that he was.

“I visit my sister sometimes,” Raphael said. “She doesn’t remember me. She thinks I’m a friendly volunteer with too much time on his hands. She thinks I’m studying literature.”

Simon quirked an eyebrow at that. Literature.

“I tell her about our mother.” Raphael was quieter now. “She doesn’t know, obviously. I make up things about our brothers.” He looked pained for a moment. “They’re not in Brooklyn anymore. They sold the house to another family.” Raphael shifted and began to walk towards the hotel again. “Dumort is home now. It’s where I sleep and eat. It’s where everyone knows who I am.”

Simon took a shaky breath just as Raphael stopped in front of him. “I’m trying,” he said. “But they’re still home for me.”

“I didn’t expect anything else.”

_But it would have been nice_ , Simon filled in. It would have been really, really nice.

He suddenly felt anxious. “When you went home after…after you Turned…”

Raphael huffed out a breath. “It was difficult. But I had a good teacher.” He looked to the sky, sinking into the memory. “Magnus helped me control myself. He made sure I didn’t forget who I was. He made sure I was still afraid of hurting them.”

Simon could feel his breath coming quickly, could see each one of them fogging the air between him and Raphael. He felt something clutch at his chest, sinking its claws in until he thought it might restart his heart. He wanted to run.

“I’m terrified,” he said.

Raphael regarded him. His eyes flicked over every inch of Simon and then landed back at his eyes. He almost looked pleased.

“Good,” he said. “Keep it that way.”

**5.**

Hanukkah was disaster.

It had started the second he’d walked through the door. His mom had bundled him in out of the cold and enveloped him in a warm hug and all Simon could do was smell her blood and choke back tears.

He’d been led to the living room where Becky sat cross-legged on the floor, glue gun and craft sticks in hand. She had grinned at him and Simon could hear her heart screaming in her chest.

He had gotten so used to the silence of the hotel. It was almost deafening to hear real, living hearts beating and real, living lungs breathing. He even convinced himself he could hear their fingernails growing.

As was tradition, Becky was making decorations. She was crisscrossing twigs into crude but lovely Stars of David. Some shone with bright blue glitter while others sat in their natural brown. Normally, Simon loved to watch her struggle to make the glue hold. Now, he felt an overwhelming sickness fill his stomach.

Raphael had never lingered on the subject of religion to a vampire. He had managed to get Simon to say “God” and seemed perfectly satisfied with that.

Simon had wanted a little more. He had pressed a careful finger to the cross hanging around Raphael’s neck. He hadn’t thought about it. He had just done it. And it hadn’t felt like anything more than a delicate piece of metal.

Raphael had watched him carefully the entire time. He hadn’t even flinched, though Simon thought it must have hurt to feel the metal pressed further against his skin.

“It has to mean something to you,” Raphael had said. “Faith and belief; that’s what makes symbols more than just pictures.” Raphael reached his hand up to touch Simon’s. He hadn’t pushed him away or pulled him closer. He had simply let his fingers rest against Simon’s skin. “This one can’t hurt you.”

Simon hadn’t expected the mere sight of any of the familiar symbols to make him feel like vomiting. He could have cried on the spot. It felt like someone had reached into his memories and twisted them into something rotten and sour.

Night after night he had pushed through dinner, greeted his grandparents, a few cousins and a couple family friends. He’d done his best not to touch anything, terrified of what would happen if his skin bubbled with burns. All he could think about was the always fresh cross shaped scar on Raphael’s chest. He couldn’t even bring himself to help light the menorah.

Then his mom had asked him to come to service with them.

She was standing in the doorway to his room. Her smile was bright. Simon had stood frozen, memorizing that expression of quiet happiness that he had given her just by being home.

And then he told her no and left.

Nobody at Hotel Dumort had asked about his absence when he returned. He slipped seamlessly back into the routine. Or he would have if he hadn’t promptly locked himself in his room and refused to leave his bed for three nights.

Lily tried to talk to him on the second night, but quickly gave up. Raphael didn’t show up until the fourth night.

He entered Simon’s room without knocking and took a seat at the foot of the bed, legs stretching out until they were just inches from Simon’s curled figure. He leveled his gaze on Simon. Simon refused to meet it.

“After I Turned Magnus couldn’t keep me away from churches,” Raphael said. “I spent every night walking the graveyard path on bare feet. I walked until my feet bled—which didn’t take very long—and then I kept walking. I kept walking until I felt too sick to stand up straight. And then I vomited up every drop of blood I’d drank and I crawled.”

Simon closed his eyes. He hated being reminded that Raphael bled, that he could be weak and sick and scared. He hated remembering that he had died.

“I did it every night. Magnus had to drag me home. He must have mastered every kind of healing magic just so he could patch me up long enough to watch me walk straight back into it.

“I did it until I stopped throwing up. I did it until all it did was give me a sore throat. And then I kept doing it. Over and over and over. I tried to make it feel like home again, but all I could think about when I looked at the church or the graveyard or my cross was what it had taken to get to that point.”

Simon couldn’t stop shaking.

“The worst part about this isn’t dying,” Raphael said. “It’s what it takes away from you when you come back.”

Simon didn’t know when he started to cry. Maybe he had never stopped after walking away from his mom or maybe he started when Raphael shifted and sat beside him, touching a gentle hand to his shoulder and pulling him closer, soft sounds of comfort brushing past his lips. Once he started, though, he couldn’t find it in himself to stop or even be quiet.

Everyone in the hotel must have heard him, but Simon felt desperate to put some sound into the crushing silence. He needed to hear something. His ears had been ringing with the absence of heartbeats.

He felt desperate, too, to let Raphael know it wasn’t just his visit home tearing him apart. Between sobs, he tried to choke out the words, tried to piece together some semblance of an explanation, some sort of apology for everything he couldn’t help.

Sorry for being born too late, sorry for not finding him sooner, sorry for long lonely nights feeling homesick and lost. He thought maybe if he said it loud enough, everyone in the hotel would be able to hear that too.

Raphael tightened his grip. “This isn’t your fault either.”

**+1**

Simon Lewis hadn’t meant to fall in love.

He had never once meant it to happen. Not in middle school when he held Clary’s hand for the first time and not a month after dying when he first heard Raphael laugh.

He had, however, meant it every time he thought it afterwards.

He meant it every time he told Clary before either of them did something terrifying. He meant it every time he said it and every time he kept it to himself.

It wasn’t often that Simon let himself think the words _I am in love with Raphael Santiago_ , but every time he did, he meant it.

Usually, it happened in quiet moments. It happened when Raphael came back to the hotel looking sleepy, dragging his feet and letting his eyes glide listlessly around the room. It happened when he sat next to Simon on his and Lily’s designated Card Game Night, kicked his feet up and said, “Deal me in, Baby.”

Once, it had even happened while they were both, miraculously, sitting on Magnus’s couch, drinks in hand, Magnus and Raphael jubilantly working their way through shared stories. They’d sputtered their way through the anecdotes, mutual looks of amusement almost always disintegrating into bouts of laugher.

This had been an especially quiet moment that had filled Simon’s chest with an unbearable urge to say the words aloud. He had pressed his hand to Raphael’s skin as all three of them spiraled slowly towards another moment of laughter and Raphael had leaned closer, dropped his head to Simon’s shoulder for a moment and then downed the rest of his drink.

He hadn’t said it. Not in that moment and not in any other moment. But he thought that he must have made it obvious somewhere along the way, because it become far too coincidental when Lily fixed him with fond eyes every time he thought it. And Raphael had stopped looking a little surprised when Simon slipped next to him in an empty room or touched his sleeve in a crowd. He seemed to expect it now. And Simon was nothing if not willing to fill that expectation. After all, Raphael was, above all else, Simon’s leader.

Which was an easy enough excuse to hold on to when Simon felt a little too weak to be keeping secrets. Though, as time went on, it became flimsier.

Raphael was the leader of the clan, but he never really imposed that fact on any of them. It just wasn’t necessary. The title was really just for external appearances. If the Shadowhunters needed to deal with the vampires, they came to Raphael first. If the werewolves had a grudge, Raphael was the face they stuck to it. It was an alarmingly protective move, Raphael taking on the front lines by himself.

Whenever Raphael stepped into the title, Simon felt two waves of emotion crash into him: absolute admiration and nauseating guilt.

He was trying his best to absolve the guilt part, trying to find some way to stop feeling like he could have done something to make the present feel different. He could have been a better student, could have gone out more and worn down his curiosity for dangerous things before he got involved with the Shadow World.

Or, he thought, he could have gotten here faster.

That was really the root of it all. Every time Lily divulged a past regret to him, every time Raphael told him a story that broke Simon’s heart, he had to fight with the anger and distress and guilt of not having been there, not having been able to make it easier for them like they were trying to do for him. There was an imbalance that he couldn’t come to terms with.

He saw it in Magnus too. The way the warlock hesitated to help the Shadowhunters but never thought twice about coming when a downworlder called, the way he stood a little taller when Raphael was near. Pride was one thing, responsibility was another.

After his disastrous attempt to go home, Simon thought he’d tilted the scale a little. He also worried he’d tilted it too much too fast.

Raphael hadn’t spoken more than a few passing words to him since then. The silence didn’t feel like malice. If anything, it felt like a hesitation.

Simon didn’t feel like he could fault Raphael for it. Frankly, even if there had been an actual attempt at conversation, he didn’t think he would know what to say. He’d spent so much of his recent time aching over never having had a chance to support Raphael while Raphael seemed to always know when to be there for Simon. He felt a lot of frustration and a little bit of embarrassment.

He wanted to say thank you. But he figured just saying that wouldn’t cut it.

They were halfway through January when Simon found Raphael alone in the hotel. He was lying on one of the couches, legs kicked up on an arm, head resting on a pillow. There was no shot glass this time and Simon felt relieved.

Simon stepped further into the room. “Hey,” he said.

Raphael looked at him and Simon ran out of things to say. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels.

“I was going to go for a walk,” Raphael said. “Can you come with me?”

Simon blinked. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Of course.”

Dusk was just fading when they left the hotel. Raphael was dressed down. It made Simon feel off kilter watching him stroll down the sidewalk in jeans and a hoodie. Simon glanced him over and huffed out a laugh. Raphael side eyed him.

“Your shoe is untied,” Simon said.

Raphael frowned and looked at his loose shoelace. He stopped to lean down.

Simon folded his arms and watched him with a smile still playing on his lips. He looked so mundane, twisting his fingers around the frayed laces.

“Where are we going?”

Raphael undid his knot and reworked it. He didn’t say anything.

Simon frowned. Raphael kept tying the laces.

“You need help?” Simon asked.

Raphael paused. He sighed, scratched at his neck and then sat on the ground. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back until the streetlight bled into every shadow on his face.

Simon chewed his lip.

“Mariana Vasquez,” Raphael said.

Simon hummed a questioning note.

Raphael tilted his head towards him and opened his eyes. “She’s the woman my brothers sold the house to.”

“Oh.”

Raphael closed his eyes again.

It was quiet.

Simon stepped over and kneeled down. He waited for Raphael to open his eyes again before he spoke. “Anything you need.”

Raphael held his stare for a long moment. Then he put a hand on Simon’s arm and dropped his forehead lightly to his shoulder. He took measured breaths and said nothing.

It was so quiet.

Simon wanted to be able to offer something more specific. His words felt so loose and noncommittal. “Anything” meant a lot, but it also felt unfair. Find me something to do, it said. He had wanted to take that pressure, any pressure, off of Raphael’s shoulders.

Simon’s feet were starting to fall asleep by the time Raphael pulled away from him. He finished tying his laces and stood. Simon followed suit, stomping the tingles out of his feet.

“We should go,” Raphael said. “I don’t want it to be too late when we get there.”

He started walking again, leading the way down the sidewalk.

Gradually, the tight alleyways faded into drifts of clean snow. By the time the sound of traffic had faded to just the crunch of their footsteps on the icy sidewalk, Simon spotted a small neighborhood.

He eyed the buildings. They were mismatched and old but well cared for. Snow dusted them and icicles hung from the gutters. Almost all of them still had lights shining from the windows, brightness and color slanted with the shadows of open blinds. Simon could see the colors of the walls inside. It was a naked display of trust that he had never seen in his own suburb.

The crunch of snow had stopped. Simon turned to Raphael who stood with his hands in his pockets, eyes narrowed at the huddle of homes.

Simon gestured towards them. “It’s nice,” he said. “Cozy.”

Raphael snorted out half a laugh. His eyes flickered all across the space, jumping between windows and doors. And memories, Simon imagined.

He looked back at the houses and thought about what it meant for Raphael to see his old home so open to prying eyes. He wondered what it felt like to be those prying eyes. To be a vampire on top of it.

Not good, he decided.

He slipped in next to Raphael until their shoulders touched. “Do you need a minute?”

“No,” Raphael said immediately. “I came here, didn’t I?”

Simon considered the words. He’d come here by his own choice, but he’d also asked tentatively for Simon’s company. He’d wasted time on an untied shoelace, he’d stopped walking before the light of the windows could touch him. He’d been breathing, steadily and relentlessly the entire night.

Simon hooked his arm through Raphael’s, paused, and then slid his hand down until he could lock their fingers together.

Raphael made a small noise that could have been a protest or a question. Simon tightened his hold and pulled. “Come on,” he said quietly.

Simon led the way through the snow, placing his feet in the scattered holes from others’ steps. A few of the houses still had string lights twinkling against their roofs, painting their white lawns with blurs of red and green.

They wandered for a few minutes, Simon’s palm still pressed to Raphael’s. Simon knew without asking that they must have already passed the house. They’d almost made three complete circuits of the area. He kept walking, though, keeping himself patient.

Eventually, Raphael tugged on Simon’s hand and they stopped in front of a two story house that they had passed only twice.  
Simon looked at Raphael and he nodded.

The path to the front door had been shoveled recently. There were still crumbles of salt that crunched under their shoes, but it had done its job and rid the concrete of any dangerous ice patches. Simon felt grateful because, suddenly, his knees didn’t feel so steady.

This had been Raphael’s home.

Despite knowing that Raphael hadn’t lived here for years, Simon couldn’t help but look for him in the walls. It just looked like a house. Vinyl siding, a few windows and a front door made of wood. There was a bike leaning against the front steps and Simon could see rust poking through the layer of snow it had collected.

The closest thing it held to the Raphael Simon knew was the quiet of it. Simon couldn’t spot any movement from its windows which sported the same open invitation as the rest of the neighborhood. Half of them were lit up, painting the ground in front of them with squares of yellow and orange. Someone was definitely home and definitely awake.

They were in front of the door. A small doorbell button glowed faintly next to it. Simon looked at Raphael.

Raphael was staring up at the house, eyes fixed on a space that could have been the second floor window or could have been anything else in the world, honestly. Simon couldn’t place the look in his eyes.

“I used to come here a lot,” Raphael said. “Just to see it.”

“That’s kind of creepy.”

Raphael looked at the front door. He lifted his free hand and rang the doorbell. Simon wanted to make an _easy enough comment_ , but he could feel Raphael’s fingernails digging into his hand.

This was a different kind of quiet. It was filled with an electric current. There was too much nervous energy and nowhere for it to go.

The door opened.

Mariana Vasquez was in her late 70s. Her hair was a mottle of gray and white, though she wore it proudly and wore it well. At 8 o’ clock PM she was still wearing her warm winter church clothes, though her feet were covered in fuzzy slippers. When she opened the door, she opened it with a smile. When she didn’t recognize the boys on her doorstep, her smile widened.

“Hello,” she greeted. “Aren’t you cold?”

There was an awkwardly long pause. Simon realized Raphael had stopped breathing and without breath he couldn’t very well speak.

Simon smiled kindly at the women. “Hello!” His voice cracked and her eyes twinkled. “We’re sorry to bother you so late. But you see, uh…”

“I used to live here.”

Mariana looked at Raphael. So did Simon.

Raphael had slipped his hand out of Simon’s, but his fingers were pinching the edge of Simon’s coat. He stood straight, his face was relaxed and he was using his Leader of the Clan voice.

“We were just walking home and passing the neighborhood and I thought…” He turned meek here and Simon honestly couldn’t tell if it was an act. “Well, I wondered who had replaced me.”

Mariana laughed. It was rounded and well worn. Simon appreciated that he had been allowed to hear it.

“I don’t remember Nicolas mentioning a grandson.” It wasn’t an unkind comment. It sounded more pleased than suspicious. Still, Simon felt the way it made Raphael tense. Nicolas, he thought, must have been one of Raphael’s brothers. But of course this woman would assume Raphael was a grandson. He looked much too young to be anything else.

“Yes,” Raphael said tightly.

Mariana seemed unaffected. “Well,” she said, “you’d at least better take a break from the cold. You look frozen solid.” She stepped aside. “Come in.”

It was much warmer inside. Simon could feel it on his skin. It surrounded him as soon as the front door was closed. He could hear the low mumble of a television show. A light bulb to his left was buzzing. The air smelled faintly of flowers and an extinguished fire.

“I’ve redone the place a little,” Mariana said as she wandered down the hall.

Simon threw an assessing look at Raphael and tugged at his sleeve. Raphael only nodded stiffly and followed Mariana down the hall.

Mariana was happy to lead them around the house, showing them the kitchen and living room, pointing out the new paint colors she’d picked and retelling family dinner stories. Simon involved himself as much as possible in the conversation, hoping to make up for Raphael’s silence.

Raphael simply followed them. He didn’t say a word. His eyes roamed every wall, stopping on empty spaces and skipping over picture frames. While they wandered through the kitchen, he drifted away from Simon’s side to touch a knick in the countertop.

“I haven’t done much upstairs,” Mariana said. She was watching Raphael now. Her voice was kind. “Stairs aren’t the easiest thing at my age. You’re welcome to take a look.”

It was an invitation. One that Simon hadn’t expected, but in retrospect made sense. Of course she trusted them.

They accepted the offer.

The stairs creaked as Simon took them, Raphael already three steps ahead of him. At the top was another hall. The walls here were all bare except for a few leftover holes from photo frame hooks. There was a door at the end of the hall and two more on each side.

“She’s nice,” Simon said when he came to stand beside Raphael.

“Yeah.”

“Which one was…” He gestured at the hall in front of them. “Which one was yours?”

Raphael drifted towards the last on the left. Simon followed.

The room was pretty much empty. There was a bed, neatly made with plain white sheets and a flattened comforter. A few shelves were nailed crookedly into the walls, but they held no suggestion of an occupant, past or present. The floor was covered in a stiff off white carpet with no rug or mess to break the monotony of it. A single window sat just a little too close to the corner of the room, blinds shut.

Simon stepped forward to take a slow walk around the room, but he was stopped. He made a noise of surprise, not expecting his movement to be restricted, and turned back to Raphael.

Raphael had stopped breathing and stopped blinking. His eyes were fixed on the empty shelves and his hand was once again gripping the edge of Simon’s jacket. Though, now his fingers were tight enough for Simon to worry about the safety of the fabric.

Simon relented against the pressure of the hold and stepped closer to Raphael. “Hey,” he said. Raphael didn’t respond. “You good?”

“I didn’t take anything with me when I left.”

Simon looked at the empty shelves again. He wanted to ask what Raphael had crowded them with and why he hadn’t thought it’d been important enough to take with him. He looked back at Raphael and opened his mouth. But he caught the gleam of a familiar gold chain cutting into Raphael’s skin and thought better of it. Of course he’d brought something with him, Simon thought. Something tangible and heavy and a little harder to carry than a box of knick knacks or old clothes.

Simon carefully touched his fingers to Raphael’s neck, feeling the thin line of the necklace. He tried, for a moment, to remember what a pulse felt like.

“This was a mistake.”

Raphael’s throat vibrated with the words. Simon felt it run along his fingers and directly up his arm. He watched Raphael’s face carefully.

Raphael had made a habit of talking to Simon. When you lived with the same people for a long period of time, there was a temptation to keep everything to yourself. While growing up in a close knit family, Simon had experienced it frequently. There wasn’t often a fear of being rejected, but there was a need to keep parts of himself exactly where they belonged: with him.

Raphael, as far as Simon knew, had never given in to that temptation. He remembered Raphael calling Dumort home. The place where everyone knew him.

Simon had been no exception. Raphael had waited on it, of course. He’d taken pause and measured Simon’s likelihood to run. But when the acceptance had sunk in to Simon’s bones, Raphael had begun telling him things.

Simon had clung to it immediately. He’d relished each and every story, every single glimpse at what Raphael used to be. It was like slowly being handed the smaller snippets of a story he already knew the ending to.

Raphael, devout in his every decision, had walked hallowed ground until it had nearly killed him again. Raphael, compassionate enough to go after a monster in the dark, had come back for his clan. Raphael, who had lost everything, found it again and walked away, had found it in himself to tell Simon everything.

Simon felt a calm settle in him. He slid his hand down until he touched the cross and slipped his fingers between it and Raphael’s skin. The small mark beneath it was warm and, as always, fresh.

Raphael looked at Simon’s hand.

“I’m sorry about…” Simon took a breath and stopped talking.

How could he apologize for things that had happened years ago? He knew none of what happened to Raphael had been his fault, but he almost wished it had been, if only so he could have a chance at making it up to him.

“What would you have done?”

It was gently encouraging. A joke, but also an honest question. Something to help Simon along. Simon realized Raphael was wishing for the same thing, though maybe not as fully and not as desperately as Simon was.

“Helped,” Simon said. “Been there.”

“People were there,” Raphael said. “They helped. It still happened.”

Simon uncurled his fingers from Raphael’s cross.

“We should go, shouldn’t we?” Raphael murmured.

“I don’t think she minds,” Simon said.

“It’s late.”

“Barely.”

“Simon.” Raphael looked up. “I want to go home.” He pulled himself away from Simon, just enough to give them both fresh air.

Simon almost moved with him. He felt like he was watching something fragile fall to the floor. A glass slipping from careless fingers. He should have reached out to catch it, but all he could do was watch it shatter. “Okay,” he heard himself say.

Raphael looked around the room again, eyes still getting stuck on the empty shelves. He looked like he wanted to say something else and Simon waited, but it never came. He walked out of the room and was at the top of the stairs by the time Simon followed.

They exchanged pleasantries with Mariana. Raphael was all courtesy and smiles. She seemed to appreciate the sudden shift in mood.

When they stepped back outside, most of the houses had gone to sleep, their windows dark and empty. Even the string lights had been turned off.

Simon knew it couldn’t have been past midnight, but the air felt like three in the morning. Light and empty, waiting for the morning to fill it.

Their footsteps sounded loud against his ears as they made their way back towards the city. Simon watched his breath curl into the air in front of him. He could hear cars in the distance, the noise pressing a low humming panic under his skin.

He stopped walking.

“Raphael.”

It felt like they were leaving something important behind. They were shifting from a safe zone back to the regular buzz of every day life. He was a little bit terrified that the hesitation of the past few weeks would come with it.

Raphael had stopped walking a few steps ahead. Simon stared at the few feet of concrete and snow between them.

What had he expected himself to say next? He could apologize again. He could apologize a hundred more times. A thousand. He could keep saying the words until they were like his breathing, an old habit from an old need that couldn’t be filled. A comfort made mostly for him.

Instead, he thought maybe it was time to start telling his own stories.

“When my dad died, it felt like I had to relearn how to live.” He swallowed. “I don’t think anyone realized that was what the hard part was. Everything was different. I lost my dad, but it wasn’t just that. I lost a place to dump all my secrets, we lost a full dinner table. The house was quieter. The days were longer. For a long time, I just wanted the old life back. And don’t get me wrong. If I could have him back, I wouldn’t hesitate. But I just mean…I mean life wasn’t bad after he was gone. It was just different. And it took a while to get used to. But after I did…Becky and I were closer, I started telling my mom more things about my life. I started my band.”  


He blinked, trying to hold everything inside for just a little longer. He didn’t know how Raphael did it. He didn’t know how he put these things out there, not for him but for everyone else that needed it.

“What I mean is I get it. I don’t know everything and I don’t think I need to know everything. I just…I just get it. I can’t imagine moving on to a new life again, but I couldn’t back then either. So if you…if you still need help with this…” He straightened up as best he could against the winter breeze. “I’m here now.”

It was quiet. For a long time, it was quiet.

Simon was no longer able to feel his heart hammer. A silent heart while his nerves ran high had always been one of the strangest sensations to him.

Raphael shifted. He lifted a hand towards his face. Simon, though Raphael wasn’t facing him, politely glanced away. When he looked back, Raphael had tilted his head towards the sky and a long stream of white breath was hovering over his head.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“That’s not—” Simon ground his teeth together. “I _know_.” He huffed and wrapped his arms around himself. “I’ll be the first to admit I’ve got a lot of guilt. All of you have done a lot for me and I definitely want to return the favor, but…God, Raphael. Helping you isn’t about some debt that needs to be repaid. It’s just…It’s just about you.”

Raphael was facing him now. Simon tried to meet his eyes, but it was incredibly difficult. He recognized exactly how much all of this sounded like a confession.

Simon heard every step Raphael took until he was close enough to block to wind from chilling his already cold skin.

“You’re upset.”

Simon snorted and finally looked at him. “I think you’re projecting.”

Raphael brushed aside some of Simon’s hair. Simon leaned into the touch and let his eyes flutter shut for just a few seconds.

Raphael kissed him.

It didn’t feel like just a kiss. Simon could hear the way Raphael had told him, “it has to mean something,” months ago as Simon pressed his fingers to his cross. He could remember the way his words had sounded like they meant a million things at once, how Raphael had watched him with careful, patient eyes. And he wondered how long Raphael had been waiting.

Simon pulled away first. “I’m sorry,” he said, though not for the kiss.

Raphael nodded his head and ghosted his lips against Simon’s cheek. It felt so small and so big all at once. It made Simon dizzy. He wondered why he had ever thought he needed to apologize.

“It’s okay,” Raphael said. He sounded immensely relieved. “You got here eventually.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading <3
> 
> I'm possibly going to be exploring this a little more, jumping around to different points that I think would be cool to explore further in separate fics. Lemma know if that's something you'd read.
> 
> I'm on tumblr as BoldBones.


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